Tango
by TheAfterglow
Summary: Occurs after 4.22 Before the Flood. She felt like someone else: married, on vacation.
1. Chapter 1

The darkness of the long hallway leading between the lobby of the hotel and the extensive veranda on the rear overlooking the Pacific was cut by shafts of white sunlight through the arch-framed windows that lined the corridor. In the late afternoon, each beam of light was alive with particles of dust that moved endlessly, illuminated as if on stage. Outside, she could hear the noise of the ocean and the occasional shriek of a child, interrupted by the endless ticking, clicking, and hissing of the sprinklers on the grass of the lawn. The sound reminded her of her ten-speed bike, the one she'd gained scars on her knees from, learning to ride by herself without anyone there to teach her.

Inside the hotel, it was very dark between the spotlights of the windows, and Sydney drifted slowly between them, rubbing her knuckles gently along the stucco wall. She was alternately blinded by the light in front of the windows, and then blinded with the spots the light made her see in between them. There was no hurry to get back outside in the sunshine. Her shoulders and nose were already peeling a little from the time they'd spent lying on the beach, drunk on tequila and each other. Freckles had emerged across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, which she hated. He liked it, of course.

"I've never noticed your freckles—they're cute," he'd shrugged, and then he'd kissed sloppily her on her cheekbone as if to prove it. He was getting freckles too, across the top of his back and on his shoulders.

He was still outside, waiting for her. Her headache had reached critical mass, and she had gone inside to take some painkillers. As she'd splashed water on her face in the bathroom, the sight of herself in the large oval mirror had surprised her: how dark her skin had become in such a short time, her long hair ropey from the saltwater. She'd pulled aside her bikini top a little to inspect the difference in skin tones, pale cream against sun-soaked, the white cotton of her skirt startling against the brown of her thighs. Her appearance had never obsessed her, but now she stared at her image, transfixed as if she were looking at someone else. She felt like someone else: married, on vacation. Who'd have thought?

_Married_.

She reached the end of the hallway, where it let out into the clubhouse room that lead to the back patio. Just as she stepped down onto the brown Spanish tile, she felt the hairs on her neck stand on end.

What _was_ that? It had happened now three times since they'd arrived 4 days ago, and each time she'd whirled around to find herself staring at nothing, no one watching or following her. She was tired of being paranoid, of being ever watchful. They had taken precautions, but you could never be too careful in this business. Sometimes she half-expected him to turn to her one day and tell her that his name wasn't Michael, that it was something else entirely.

Back outside into the blinding light, she felt the shiver disappear, and she flicked her sunglasses down onto her nose. Her cute freckled nose, she smiled.

* * *

1:47 AM, the clock read.

Her headache had not subsided, despite a temporary respite that she suspected was brought on by their lovemaking earlier in the evening. His breathing beside her was deep, even. She envied his ability to sleep, but it was not something he could teach her. Maybe a walk could clear her head, get some fresh air.

The hotel staff had warned them of the dangers of the local environment, and they'd nodded politely but neither had heeded the warnings.

Tonight the moon was nearly full as she walked along the edge of the ocean, far from the hotel. Her feet sank into the damp sand at the edge of the line where the ocean lapped at the beach. There was a light breeze, and it prickled her arms into goose bumps as she walked deliberately, one foot in front of the other.

She wished they could stay forever.

Back in the hotel, she padded barefoot down the hallway, now shot through with moonbeams, when she felt the sensation again.

She whipped around, and there, between two patches of moonlight, he was.

"Hello, Sydney."

Her mouth opened a little, but she closed it almost immediately and swallowed hard. She must've walked right past him in her daze. He was leaning against the wall.

"Sark—what are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing," he said with a tiny smile, "I saw you walking outside—I didn't realize you were a guest here as well."

"I'm on my honeymoon," she whispered. "Stay away from me."

Now he smirked, "Your honeymoon? Well, let me be the first to offer my congratulations to you and… I suppose it _is_ Vaughn you're here with?"

She gave him a withering look, but said softly, "Yes."

Even in the blue cast of the moonlight, she could tell he was very tan, and that his blonde hair, still close-cropped, was nearly white-gold from the sun. It made her uneasy to think that they might enjoy the same things. Sun. Sleep. He was wearing flip-flops. _Flip-flops_.

"Are you here with someone?" she heard herself ask without really consciously deciding to ask the question.

His smirk broadened. "No one… _special_," his teeth were very white in the darkness, "But I am certainly not without… companionship."

"Then maybe you should go enjoy it, and stop following me around." With that, she turned on her heel and marched straight back to their room, where she was safe. She heard him chuckle behind her in the darkness.

As she closed the door behind her and leaned heavily on the handle, she noticed—her headache was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

At breakfast, she felt nervous; she waited for him to come up behind her and hold a gun to her head, or to slip into the table next to them and sit there as though nothing was wrong with that. Every time she saw a blonde head emerge from the hallway, she sat up a little straighter, only to slump back again in her chair when she realized it wasn't him.

"Are you not hungry," Vaughn finally said, looking at the food still on her plate.

"What?" She started at the sound of his voice, then looked at the heap of fruit she'd taken from the buffet line. "Um, no, I just didn't sleep well… I guess I'm not hungry."

A shadow of concern crossed Vaughn's face, but then he smiled before saying, "Are you feeling OK? You're really jumpy, and you said you had a migraine yesterday."

"I'm fine," she smiled, shaking her head. "Just too much sun… I'm not used to being relaxed, you know? It's weird almost."

"Yeah," Vaughn agreed, and speared another piece of pineapple, "I'm not complaining. So, what do you want to do today? Anything?"

She stretched, her shirt pulling up to show her brown midsection a little, and said, "I don't have a problem with the program so far."

"Cool."

* * *

Her eyes were so relaxed she could see the veins and capillaries running on the inside of her eyelids, through a dim red and yellow haze she knew to be the blood moving inside her eyes. It was kind of hypnotic. The sun beat down on them, and she could feel the pleasant heat soaking into her body.

She tried not to think about Sark.

Vaughn lie reading next to her. The constant breeze off the ocean was the only thing that made the heat of the sand tolerable. She was relatively dark-skinned; she wondered at how Sark managed not to be completely fried, as pale as he was.

_God_, why did she have to keep thinking about him? It was like he was infecting her brain.

It had been over a year since he'd escaped from them, in Paris. After she'd bitten his lip around that lime. She'd had a lot of limes this week.

"You want a drink?" Vaughn turned his head to her.

"It's not even lunch time," she giggled, "Isn't it a little early?"

"It's noon somewhere," he shrugged, then rolled towards her. "Besides, we don't have to stay out here all day." His hand traced a lazy circle around her belly button where it was exposed, then down to the bottom of her bikini. "I'm sure we could find other ways to pass the time." She closed her eyes behind her sunglasses and smiled as he stroked the inside of her thigh. "So, do you want a drink, or what?"

"Ok," she smiled, and slapped his hand away.

He had barely been gone a minute when a young man hawking umbrellas came by. Sydney raised her hand to wave him away, saying "_No, por favor_," when he pressed a note into her hand and kept walking.

It was a slip of paper, folded in two. She sat up abruptly and saw that it was a piece of hotel stationary. Opening it, she read, "Lovely bikini. Look to your right."

Like her head was moved by an invisible hand, she looked over her right shoulder casually, scanning the beach. There were several canvas-covered cabanas down the sand a ways, not exactly far, but far enough that they couldn't see who was in them, or hear any conversation from them. A pair of male feet protruded from one, propped up on a small table meant for drinks. _Sark_. No wonder he wasn't burned. What was this? Was he spying on them? She had half a mind to march down there and shoot him with the gun she had in her beach bag.

"Here you go," Vaughn said behind her, and she turned to find him handing her a mojito. Complete with a wedge of lime. Perfect.

She lay back and tried not to wonder what Sark was up to.


	3. Chapter 3

It was nine o'clock, and they had just ordered dessert when Sark entered the dining room with a girl on his arm. She didn't look a day over twenty-one, and everything about her screamed sorority girl on vacation. She was tan, more deeply than Sydney, a hue almost more orange than brown, and her platinum hair was just beginning to show roots. The girl's skirt, a turquoise blue pleated affair, ended just above where her buttocks folded at the top of her thigh, so that when she bent to sit down, Sydney could actually see her white bikini bottom a little. The top left equally little to the imagination, and from what she could see, Sydney judged her assets to be a nice solid C. Not too big, not too small, but certainly bigger than her own—what did _that_ even matter? Her handbag looked expensive, though she wasn't familiar enough with the "in" brands these days to know which maker it was. Prada? Vuitton? Fendi? Sydney drew in a sharp breath and looked at the remains of her dinner. The maitre'd was seating Sark and his bimbo at a table behind Vaughn, but in plain sight of her.

"Ooooh," she groaned as cover, "I think I ate too much."

"Yeah?" Vaughn smiled, "Then why did you just order dessert?"

"It just caught up with me," she smiled as though embarrassed at her predicament. "Maybe I can send it back."

"You could take it with for later," Vaughn grinned, "You might need nourishment later, in case you work off the calories you just ate."

She blushed a little at his insinuation. They had been very affectionate. She glanced past Vaughn's shoulder at Sark, as though she were embarrassed to meet Vaughn's eyes, and noticed that Sark was stroking the back of his date's hand with his thumb. The girl giggled and smiled coyly at him, and they were just far enough away that Sydney couldn't hear a word they were saying. It was maddening. Why she even cared, she didn't know, except that the girl probably had no idea how dangerous he was, and that Sark was not the kind of guy you took home to mom.

"I wish we could stay longer," Sydney said, returning her focus back to Vaughn. "I don't even want to think about all the thank-you notes I have to write."

"Well, then think about all the gifts we have to unwrap instead," Vaughn suggested. Their temporary plan for a small wedding, even elopement, had quickly gone by the wayside.

She nodded, and glanced back at Sark's table. He was saying something, his eyes averted from his date, who was nodding and listening intently. _Don't worry, honey_, she thought sarcastically,_ you're gonna get laid, whether you listen to his bullshit or not. _She was insanely curious about what yarn he might be feeding her.

Their desserts arrived, and she picked at hers in silence while Vaughn ate slowly, so slowly that she wanted to reach over and slap him. She couldn't wait to get away from Sark and his ridiculous date. How old was he? 27? The girl was way too young for him. She wondered how he must look to someone who hadn't seen him in action. He was of good height; not short, but not unusually tall. Slender, but in good shape. At present, very tan. She supposed, to someone who didn't know him, his silky smooth British accent might make him charming, though he could fake any number of accents, so who knew what he had told this girl. She had gotten over accents long ago. People were basically people, no matter where they came from. And Sark was basically… a murdering, lying asshole, no matter what his protestations of being a changed man.

The girl threw her head back and laughed unnecessarily hard at something Sark had said, and Sydney could barely keep from throwing her fork at his head.

* * *

Vaughn's ambitions had been premature, and he dozed on the bed while she lie awake, listening to every creak and snap of the hotel settling down for the night.

Finally, at 11:35, she couldn't stand it anymore, and she threw on her jeans and a t-shirt to go take a walk. She was nearly to the outside doors when she noticed the concierge was still at the front desk. As casually as possible, she strolled over and asked him if he could tell her what room a friend of hers was staying in.

"_No, señora_," the clerk gave her his best regretful expression, "But I can ring your friend and see if he is… available."

"Alright," she agreed, delighted at the thought that the phone might interrupt whatever quality time Sark was spending with his blonde "companion."

She glanced nonchalantly at the display of the phone as the clerk dialed Mr. Peter Garo. 9-347, the display read.

So--he was on the third floor.

"I'm sorry," the clerk replaced the receiver on the base, "But the gentleman does not answer. Would you like me to take a message?"

"No, thanks, that won't be necessary," she told him. "Good night."

She walked to the nearest stairwell and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. The signage indicated rooms 35-50 were to her left as she emerged from the stairwell door, and she glanced over her shoulder before moving that direction. After passing 4 rooms, she paused outside the door marked 347, and listened as hard as she could.

There was nothing. Short of pressing her ear to the door, she couldn't hear anything. Maybe they weren't there? Finally, she raised her hand and knocked. There was a brief pause, and then she heard the chain being taken off the door. She wanted to run away suddenly, but then the door swung wide open, and he stood in the doorway, backlit by lamplight.

"Yes," he said. She couldn't hear anything but the sound of the television behind him, and she would've had to move to peer around him.

"Um, hi," she said, unsure of what to say now that she was there. "I was on your floor looking for ice, so I thought I'd knock."

"Ice?" he smirked. "At 11:45?"

"Yeah…" she nodded, looking at the floor. She was suddenly acutely aware of not having a bra on.

"The ice machine is down the hall, but it appears you've forgotten your ice bucket," he noticed. His eyes were lazy, amused as he looked her up and down. "What's the matter, Sydney, too hot in your room?"

"I can't sleep," she admitted. "I was going to take a walk."

"I'm sure the beach is much nicer than the third floor," he chuckled. "Really, you wanted to go for a walk, or you wanted to check up on me?"

She shot him another withering glance before she muttered, "I'm sure you're old enough to take care of yourself… even if your date isn't."

He laughed then, a short, braying sound, and shoved one hand in his pocket. "You know, that's funny you would mention her. Too bad she's saving herself for marriage." He smiled even wider at Sydney's shocked expression. "Oh, yes—she was a bible thumper of the first class. Pity, too—all that beauty going to waste, waiting for her soul mate to come and make her a real woman."

Sydney's mouth fell open a little bit. "Oh, I… I thought maybe you and she had—"

"Had what, had had _relations_? I assure you, nothing of the sort occurred," Sark pouted openly. "Most disappointing. I'm sure this isn't a problem you share at the moment."

She blushed, and crossed her arms in front of her. "That's none of your business," she grumbled.

"Can I offer you a drink, Sydney?" he had a malicious gleam in his eye. "I've got plenty of ice in here… Perhaps something tropical, something with… a lime in it?"

At that she turned on her heel and sprinted down the hall, away from his laughter and his insinuations. Back to Vaughn, and her lime-free room.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Vaughn woke with a slight fever and nausea so bad that Sydney had to drag the trash can in from the bathroom in case he didn't make it.

"Syd," he sighed, "I'm sorry I'm sick—you should go do something without me." His eyes were closed, and underneath his tan, he was very pale.

"No, it's fine," she assured him, checking his fever with the back of her hand on his forehead. He was lightly sweated, but not terribly hot. "In sickness and in health, right?"

"Right," he smiled and took her hand. "But really—I'll be fine, I just want to sleep. Don't be afraid to go out without me."

"Maybe later," she said, stroking his cheek. His skin was slightly sticky to the touch.

Several hours later, he had been sleeping solidly for some time when she decided to go sit outside on the veranda. She wouldn't chance the beach, in case he woke up, but it would be nice to be outside.

Once she was carefully ensconced on a chaise lounge chair with a book, she noticed that there was a storm forming off the coast, and watched as the blankets of rain sheeted between the dark underbelly of the clouds and the blue-green water. A light breeze had come up, and she shivered despite the sunshine. She was deep in concentration on her book when she noticed someone had slipped into a chair a few down from hers.

Without turning her head, she looked to her right and nearly groaned out loud to see that it was Sark. God, he was like her annoying little brother.

"What?" she snapped, peevish now that he seemed to be following her.

"Oh, Sydney," his voice was languid. Had he had a few too many cocktails? "I didn't see you there."

"Are you blind?" she muttered.

"Hm, my vision is just fine, but thank you for your concern," he retorted.

They sat in stony silence. She stared at her book, unseeing, but pretending to read as if her mortal enemy wasn't sitting three chairs down from her, interrupting her honeymoon. She snuck clandestine glances at him, taking in his outfit. Expensive looking sunglasses—check. Short-sleeved, white button-down shirt—check. She tried not to stare at his legs, very tan and well muscled, from where they emerged from his shorts. She had never seen him wear anything except pants. Since when did people in their business wear _shorts_?

"Are you here on vacation," she finally asked.

"Of course, why else would I be here," he shrugged, "Surely you don't think this is anything but coincidence that we're both guests here."

"The fact that you even said that makes me sure it's not," she turned her head then, and moved her sunglasses to the top of her head to peer at him closer. He turned then, and bumped his sunglasses down his nose so that he could stare at her over the tops of them. His eyes were still that piercing, direct blue. Nearly the color of the ocean.

"So," he said, looking at her legs, "What have you done with Agent Amorous?" His smirk was nearly unbearable.

"Agent Vaughn," she said pointedly, "Is indisposed." _And I should be going back to check up on him_, she thought.

"Pity," he said insincerely, "Have a drink with me, Sydney."

It was a statement, not a question, and it infuriated her. He said it the same way he'd asked her to come work for him, all those years ago: _Would you consider coming to work for me, if it meant I'd let you walk out of here?_

She could still feel his smug expression burning into her in the seconds before she yanked her skeleton key out of the library access terminal and alerted the guards.

"Your suave James Bond-on-vacation routine might work with bottle blonde Texan Bible beaters," she began, "But it isn't going to wor—"

"Sydney, really," he pushed up his glasses and sighed deeply, "Why must everything be so difficult with you? It's a drink. Do you want one, or not? It's very simple."

"Fine," she agreed, slamming her book shut. "One."

"Fine," he repeated, rising from his chair, and following her into the bar.


	5. Chapter 5

They sat at a table near an open window, the rattan furniture creaking as they sat down. Her glass was already sweating from the amount of ice the bartender had used. She had wanted to slap him when he had ordered a single shot of Patron, complete with salt shaker and lime wedge.

"For old times' sake," he explained, his smile devious as she stared at the fruit.

"Well, cheers," he said, lifting the tiny glass at her, licking the web of his hand where he'd sprinkled the salt, and swallowing the shot down in a gulp. He didn't break eye contact as he picked up the lime and bit it, and she noticed how his bottom lip was crooked on the one side, as if he were biting it in his teeth. "Congratulations, as I said before," he offered, wincing a little from the sourness of the lime.

"Bottoms up," she managed, and took a sip of the rum and Coke. "So, what is this really about?"

"What is what about," he repeated, maddeningly. "We can't just be sharing a drink?"

She glared at him, and wished she felt half as relaxed as he looked. "I refuse to believe it's coincidence that you disappear for a year and then show up at the hotel where we're on our honeymoon."

"People can change, Sydney, can't they?" His use of her first name made her want to throw salt in his eye. "I told you, I'm a man of my word."

She snorted and took a long drink of the cocktail. "Some things never change."

He shrugged and looked out the window, as if he were deep in thought. She sipped her drink faster than she intended; his silence made her uncomfortable. She was looking at him when he licked his lips again, presumably to clean off the last traces of salt and lime juice. Somehow this amused him, and he met her gaze steadily.

"You know," he said, a dimple forming in one cheek, "You left me with a souvenir from our mission in Paris."

She raised one eyebrow at him. "And what would that be?"

He rolled out his lower lip with the tip of his finger, and there, from her teeth, was a smallish scar inside his bottom lip. "It's not the first time you scarred me, either. Let's not forget Siberia."

She shrugged, not caring how many scars she'd caused him. "And?"

"We only hurt the ones we love," he said, "Isn't that the saying?"

"I don't know what you would know about love," she snapped, drinking faster now. She wanted to kick him under the table. Arrogant sonuvabitch. Who was he to lecture her about love, he who had conspired to murder her best friend, bargained Vaughn's life with her for Sloane's? Who had tried to kill her countless times?

"Sometimes I wonder the same thing about you," he replied smoothly.

Was that a challenge? She forced herself to breathe deeper, to stem the tide of anger she could feel beginning to creep up on her. Damn him, he didn't even look perturbed. When had she become so transparent? Usually she was better at camouflaging her emotions.

"What's the matter, Sydney? Captain Morgan got your tongue?" he chuckled and brushed his thumb along his lower lip. "Admit it, you missed me."

"What would I have to miss, Sark?" she retorted. "The part where you kick the crap out of me, or the part where I try to kill you?"

"Sydney," he closed his eyes as if she wore him out, "That's a crude estimation of our repertoire, don't you think?"

She stood abruptly and drained her drink. "I see you're long done with your drink, and now, I've finished mine. Have a nice life."

She could feel his smirk all the way back to her room.


	6. Chapter 6

Vaughn was feeling better, though not enough better to do anything besides fall asleep watching some boring, completely non-comedic movie with Sandra Bullock about a woman in rehab. Wishing the actress would somehow disappear from the face of the earth, Sydney prowled the room restlessly, waiting for sleep to overtake her.

It simply wouldn't. It reminded her of the weeks following her return to the CIA from the Covenant, when her sleep was cut short by the terrifying dreams that she couldn't even remember once she was awake.

She was still fuming about Sark's comment: _Sometimes I wonder the same thing about you._

Asshole. She had half a mind to call her father, have him send a team down to take into Sark into custody for a laundry list of assorted things so awful it made her head hurt to contemplate them.

What _was_ he doing here? She refused to believe it was a simple coincidence that he was here at the same time as they were. Before she even consciously decided on what she was doing, she was carefully gathering things from the room: her shoes, pulling on her jeans, grabbing a hairpin from her luggage. The locks on their doors weren't that sophisticated.

* * *

She strolled casually past the bar, which was Sark-free. It was almost 9:30, kind of late for dinner, but kind of early for drinks. Dining room: also empty, at least of Sark. The hotel had both an indoor and outdoor pool, curiously enough for a place right on the ocean, and the outdoor pool was lit with underwater lights in the fading twilight. No Sark.

She was beginning to lose her nerve, and she didn't want to risk knocking on his door twice. She walked past the indoor pool as a last resort. The first floor had a weight room with an observation deck that overlooked the Olympic-size pool, which was also glowing slightly murky aquamarine blue from the lights. There were curiously lots of people in the indoor pool area, and she had to look for much longer than she would've liked before she spotted him, doing laps in amongst several septuagenarians and a couple of pallid middle-aged yuppies. If his technique hadn't distinguished him, his very youth would have; he was the only one in the lanes who was moving faster than a tugboat with a leak in its hull. She was slightly surprised to note that he wore swimming trunks instead of Speedos. Sark, modest? It hardly seemed possible.

She moved quickly now, knowing he couldn't swim forever, and realizing she had a narrow window before he returned to his room to shower and change. Sprinting up the stairs, she broke into a light sweat under her t-shirt. She felt soft, lazy in the heat.

Reaching the door marked 347, she drew the hairpin from underneath her ponytail and inserted it in the lock. A few manipulations and she felt the teeth click into place, and she slipped inside his room. It was nearly the same size and configuration as her own, though the bedspread was a different color and the carpet was a different hue of hotel mauve. It was surprisingly neat, though she had never suspected Sark to be the slovenly type. There was very little in the way of personal effects scattered about. She cautiously opened the drawer of the dresser underneath the TV and was greeted by rows of neatly folded shirts and socks. She giggled a little at her gratefulness that there was no underwear in sight, but she wondered for a split second whether he wore boxers or briefs.

_Stop it_, she commanded herself, and the smile dropped from her lips. A hardcover book lay on the nightstand, next to the clock radio.

Death in Venice and Other Stories, by Thomas Mann, she read. There was a paper Bacardi coaster from the bar stuck in the pages, near the back. She opened and read at a spot that he had neatly marked in the margin.

_Nothing is stranger, more delicate, than the relationship between people who know each other only by sight—who encounter and observe each other daily, even hourly, and yet are compelled by the constraint of convention or by their own temperament to keep up the pretense of being indifferent strangers, neither greeting nor speaking to each other._

She felt as though someone had punched her in the gut, but she kept reading.

_Between them is uneasiness and overstimulated curiosity, the nervous excitement of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need to know and to communicated; and above all, too, a kind of strained respect. For man loves and respects his fellow man for as long as he is not yet in a position to evaluate him, and desire is born of defective knowledge. _

Her heart was pounding against her ribs, though she wasn't even sure why. Perhaps because he could come in at any moment and find her here. Or perhaps because she saw herself so much in the passage. Herself, and _him_, too.

_Desire is born of defective knowledge_, she mouthed the words silently, feeling her tongue roll around the consonants. It was a sensuous phrase.

"This isn't a library, you know," his voice made her jump out of her skin and whirl around. How had he gotten in without her hearing him? "Though I might consent to loaning you the book, when I'm done with it."

"I… You—" she stammered.

"Relax, Sydney," he said, rubbing a small hotel towel on his wet hair, "You're hardly the first woman to come looking for me."

"I'm not looking for you," she managed, but some tiny, traitorous part of her brain asked her, _Well, what did you come her for, then, if not for him?_

His lazy smile told her he thought otherwise.

"Ok."

He retreated into the bathroom and started the shower. "You can keep reading if you like, but I'm going to take a shower." She heard the shower curtain being pulled aside, the grating sound of metal-against-metal back and forth as he stepped in. He hadn't even shut the door, the freak.

Sydney perched uncomfortably on the edge of the bed and listened to the sound of the shower. What was her problem? Why did she let him bother her? She glanced at the book, still open in her hand.

Her knowledge certainly was defective about him, but who even _cared_? _Strained respect_, hah!

With that, she threw the book unceremoniously on the nightstand and strode defiantly to the door, resisting the urge to look into the bathroom. She let the door slam behind her, and she smiled as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and headed for the stairwell.


	7. Chapter 7

By the following morning, Vaughn was almost back to 100 and they languidly re-packed their things.

"Do we really have to go back already," Vaughn asked rhetorically. He was in the bathroom, and Sydney thought about asking him why he used so much toothpaste. Their tube that had been new when they'd left was nearly half gone.

"I know," she sighed, though she felt secretly relieved that they would be getting back to their routine—what little routine their lives had—and away from the decidedly tense "relaxation" that a honeymoon apparently entailed. She was ready to be away from this place, alien with its tropical plants, the constant noise of the ocean, and population of lethargic, sun-drunk vacationers. And, of course, a certain vacationer whose presence she could not have predicted and was totally unprepared for. She wondered if Sark was like rain; if you bring your umbrella, it won't rain. But how to be prepared for Sark? She was already carrying a gun. Forecast today: scattered thunderstorms and a 75 likelihood of Sark showers. She snickered but caught herself before actually making an audible sound.

"Do you want to grab breakfast before we head out?" Vaughn asked. "I probably should eat something solid before plane food—we don't want to have a repeat of last night."

"Sure," she smiled, placing her fingertips on his lips as he pecked her forehead. "Let's go."

* * *

The flight was short, a little less than 3 hours, and in what seemed like no time, they were touching down at LAX. The wheels of the jet raised a tiny puff of smoke and the screech of the rubber against the blacktop was audible due to the slight crosswind. Vaughn stirred in the seat next to her where he had been dozing. Unable to sleep, Sydney had resorted to staring out the window at the clouds. She leaned over and wrestled her carry-on bag from beneath her seat, looking for her cell phone to call Eric to pick them up at the airport. As she dug through her things, her fingers brushed against a foreign object.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot intoned over the plane's speaker system, "This concludes our flight today. Local time here in Los Angeles is 4:45 PM, weather is a balmy 78 degrees with winds out of the southwest, and tower is reporting a slight chance of thunderstorms later tonight. Have a nice day, and thank you for choosing Spirit Airlines."

She glanced at Vaughn, who had closed his eyes again as they taxied to the gate. She bent over further, and looked inside the carry-on where it rested on the floor between her feet.

It was a book. Drawing it out from under her cosmetics case, her heart beat a little harder to see that it was _Death in Venice_. Sark's copy of _Death in Venice_, to be more precise. With a huff, she yanked the zipper closed and sat back in her seat with her arms crossed. Her body felt wobbly, boneless with surprise. How had he gotten that in her things? They hadn't been out of her sight for more than—

Breakfast. She had left the carry-on in their room at breakfast. She felt unexpectedly violated to know that he'd been in _their_ room, looking at _their_ things. She could just imagine him poking his finger into their suitcase and smirking silently at their petty belongings, the banality of their socks and underwear amusing him in some sick way.

The plane taxied agonizingly slowly to the gate, and Sydney bounced her leg, pressing the ball of her left foot into the carpet in irritation. How dare he? Her leg moved so quickly it practically vibrated.

"Are you OK?" Vaughn asked, his eyes still closed.

"Huh?" she started at his question. "What, yes—why do you ask?"

Vaughn opened his eyes and looked at her without raising his head from the headrest. "You're about to bore a hole in the floor with your foot." A smile quirked at his lips and she immediately regretted snapping at him.

"Oh—sorry, is it bothering you?" She took a deep breath and tried to slow her nervous twitch. "I'm just really ready to get off the plane, that's all."

At that, Vaughn finally raised his head and leaned over to her so that his lips were against her ear. "I can't wait to get home," he breathed. "We can put off writing thank-you notes a little while longer, don't you think?" As he gently nuzzled the lobe of her ear and her upper jaw with his nose, she closed her eyes against the slow heat that was beginning to lap at her upper thighs. There were the things they weren't so good at, like toothpaste economy, but there were plenty of things they were expert at. They'd had plenty of time over the years to perfect pent-up desire, she was certain of that.

"Did you call Eric yet," he asked, his voice low, throaty next to her head.

"Not yet," she whispered, finally turning her head to meet his lips. As she tilted her head to the right to get a better angle, she caught a glimpse of two children seated behind them, peering through the crack between their seats. They were twins, a boy and a girl, each with hair as white-gold as corn silk cut into a page-boy haircut. They stared at her and Vaughn, perfectly solemn, and as her tongue traced against Vaughn's, she dimly heard their mother telling them to get their things together.


	8. Chapter 8

Weiss dropped them off at Vaughn's apartment—they hadn't yet consolidated into one place—and Sydney excused herself to the bathroom under the guise of freshening up. She took her entire carry-on into the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink. Closing the lid on the toilet, she sank down and jerked the book from under the heap of her things in the small blue bag.

It was a small trade paperback, a dark green cover with white lettering in Arial. She smiled a little at the memory of a professor she once had forbidding his students from turning in papers in Arial—the "stupid font" as he called it—on pain of receiving an entire letter grade lower. The back cover had the tiny, useless synopses of the stories contained in the book.

_In these stories_, she read, _Mann began to grapple with the themes that were to recur throughout his work… in _Death in Venice_ a character's carefully structured way of life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened by sexual passion._

_Oh, no, _she thought sarcastically, _not sexual passion._

Why had he given her the book? It wasn't special; it was a cheap paperback that she could get at any of the chain bookstores or on Amazon. She fanned its pages, hoping a note might fall out, but there was nary a scrap of paper pressed between the pages to mark where he'd left off. The Bacardi coaster he'd been using in Mexico was gone. She checked the table of contents and flipped directly to the titular story.

There, halfway down the first page, there was a tiny underscore under the letter 'h' in a sentence beginning, "Having made his way to the Aumeister along less and less frequented paths…"

She took a sharp breath, and began flipping rapidly through the pages, looking for more marks. She skimmed quickly as she searched, getting the gist of the character's vision of the swampy forest with its lurid flowers.

There! A 'v', underscored in _Very well then, he would travel_. Her heart beat hard in her chest and she found herself impatient as she had flipped clear to chapter 3 before discovering his next mark, this one highlighting the 'm' in the word mundane.

H. V. M. Were there more?

Just then there was a quiet knock at the door. "Just a second," she called, tossing the book in her bag as she stripped her ponytail holder from her hair with the other hand and mussed her long, brown hair. She drew her shirt over her head, left it in a heap on the floor, and went to the door.

"Hi," she smiled coyly at Vaughn, who was leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. "Did Eric leave?" she asked, already knowing the answer. She loved Weiss, and was amused by his mild embarrassment whenever they showed any kind of public affection for each other.

"What do you think," Vaughn grinned, "Are you about done in there?"

"I guess," she smiled. "Let me just brush my teeth, ok?"

Vaughn looked at her out of the top of his eyes and shrugged. "Alright. I'll be waiting."

Sydney felt the delightful heat lick up her inner thighs again, as she brushed her fingertips along his stomach, feeling its warmth through the cotton cloth of his t-shirt. "Alright," she whispered, backing away and closing the door behind her. She glanced at the book and reached for her toothbrush instead. Sark and his cryptic book message could wait. There were more pressing things to attend to.

As she scrubbed the residue of travel and plane beverages from her teeth, she peered again at herself in the mirror. There were a few fine lines appearing at the corners of her eyes, ones that didn't fade into nothingness when she relaxed her smile. _You're not getting any younger, kiddo_, she reminded herself. Another few lines at the corners of her mouth, a few creases across her forehead. All likely worsened by the extensive exposure to the sun on their honeymoon, she sighed as she spit a glob of toothpaste foam into the basin of the sink. She remembered being surprised to find out how old Vaughn actually was, when he was her handler at the CIA; she was a terrible judge of age, but she'd put him at mid-30's based on the amount of wrinkles he already had. Weiss, of course, had spilled the beans that he was only 3 years older than her. Not that it changed her feelings on him—well, maybe it had. Before Eric had told her that—information he had volunteered, not something that Sydney had been fishing for—she had him safely pegged at 35-plus, in a long-term non-married relationship with blonde Alice, one major life-event away from permanence. Her surprise to learn he was only 29 changed that, somehow; made Alice seem like less of a fixture, or made him seem more open to change, she wasn't sure.

More than anything, she supposed it had made him seem _alive_. Before he was an impenetrable entity, the kind of person you know from work, but that you never really _know_. Instead, he was someone who might move in the same circles as she, as Francie, as someone who might've sat next to her in class. She swished her mouth out with lukewarm water, and turned off the tap, being sure to give it an extra firm twist so that it wouldn't drip.

She walked out into the darkness of the bedroom, and there was a distant rumble of thunder that she caught through the open window. "Sounds like rain," she said, unbuttoning her jeans. She could make out his shape under the sheets in the dim light.

"The pilot said it might rain," he replied, and the mattress squeaked as he shifted in the bed. "C'mere."

She walked softly across the room, and climbed on all fours onto the bed. The comforter already lay in a heap on the floor at its foot, and the blanket had shimmied halfway down so that it was in danger of joining the comforter. She rocked back on her haunches and unzipped her jeans, pushing them down her thighs as she continued towards him. She could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "Leave some for me."

"There's plenty left for you," she breathed, settling on her side in front of him. "Hi," she said, nuzzling the tip of his nose with hers. As their lips met, he slid his hand around her ribcage to the hooks of her bra, and she felt the strap spring free under his skillful fingers.

"Are you already naked," she giggled a little as his fingers caressed her side.

"Why don't you come find out?"

She widened her eyes a little at him in the dark, not knowing if he could even see. He was not usually so forthright in his intentions. The enforced closeness of their honeymoon seemed to have emboldened him in a way that she found… enticing.

"Why don't you take my pants off instead," she suggested.

"Fine," he retorted, grasping the cloth where it was bunched around her knees and jerking it towards her ankles. She laughed as he made a production of flinging her jeans into the pile with the comforter before he rolled over onto her and slid back up to meet her kisses. She could feel, through the sheet, that he was in fact naked, and very eager to show her that.

"Mmmm," she moaned against his mouth, and she arched against him as he slowly ground his hips against hers. His hand found its way between them and freed her breast of its cotton tether, gently rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She gasped and broke their kiss as he pinched her hard enough that it stung a little, and looked him in surprise.

"Vaughn, that hurt," she whimpered, and was surprised to hear how unconvinced she sounded of her own words. He looked at her for a moment before he leaned down and took her lower lip between his teeth, teasing her, pulling at it while never breaking eye contact.

"I think you like it," he replied, his voice husky. "You're not so gentle with me, you know."

"Right, but…" she trailed off as he pinched her nipple again and her eyes closed against her will. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she arched back against the pillow and he suckled at her earlobe, then down her neck to her collarbone. She moaned as she felt his hands move down her sides to the waistband of her underwear, felt his thumbs against her skin as he tugged them down over her hips. She raised her hips a little so that he could draw the cloth under her butt, then sat up to slip her arms out of her bra straps. He sat back and watched her, devouring her nakedness with his eyes, and she instantly felt the same raw need as the first night they'd spent together, when they'd come home from the wreckage of SD-6 to his bed—his apartment, in a fit of recklessness where they'd risked finding Alice at home, when she'd seen the pictures of Alice on the coffee table in the living room but not cared one bit as they'd stumbled stupidly lust-drunk into this very bed.

As she threw her bra aside he flung the sheet from between them and hooked his elbow under her knee, drawing it close to him as he lay on her. Her hands grasped at his spine, corded with muscles like steel cables, as he pushed his cock between her legs, into her slick, wet heat. She arched against him as he filled her full on the first thrust, pressing against her until she nearly broke with ecstasy before he gave her room to breathe.

Her head lolled to the side and he whispered against her hair and the top of her ear, "The walls aren't thin here, you don't have to be quiet."

_Yes, oh, yes_, her mind screamed, this was how she loved him: cocksure, not asking but taking, _taking_ her. It wasn't always like this, but she secretly loved when he took her to the mat. A good fuck had the same rough physicality of a good fight—so that she knew when it was over she'd be marked so that she knew she was still alive.

"Oh, yes," she replied, her body trying to fold up with pleasure, "Fuck me, please," she begged. She wrapped her free leg over his thigh and felt the wet spot that was already beginning to form under her. He released her leg then, and she hitched her leg around his waist; with his arm free, he shifted his weight more evenly over her and circled his hips slowly, maddeningly. _Oh, please, no—yes, no not yet_, her brain was nearly already in overload, she wanted to say something, tell him it was _too_ good, but it came out as an unintelligible groan of near-ecstasy.

Vaughn dropped his head to her shoulder and she could hear in his breathing that he was dangerously close; his movement stilled for a few seconds as he slipped one arm under her lower back. There was nowhere for her to move except against him, and as she rocked her pelvis towards his stomach, she felt the sudden, irrevocable twinge of her orgasm beginning.

"Syd, wait," he groaned against her neck, but she was gone, unreachable, and she heard herself cry out in a foreign tongue she only spoke when they were together like this. Unable to hold off any longer, she dimly felt his fingers bite into the flesh at the side of her hip and him drawing her tight to him with the arm that was banded under her back as he bucked hard against her once, twice, three times. He shuddered and exhaled a voiceless laugh, an utterance she recognized as an expression of the temporary fluency in the language of their bodies.

As their breathing slowed and she came back to herself, she relaxed her leg from around his waist so that her foot rested on the sheet inside his thigh. Her fingers traced a lazy path in the groove of his spine, feeling the light moisture of his sweat and the thinly padded knobs of his spine under her fingertips. He settled slowly onto her, his warm breath making her skin damp where his lips rest against her collarbone. A car's highlights on the street below threw shadows from the blinds onto the ceiling, and somewhere outside in the darkness, a locust droned its late summer song.

Her smile grew out of a twitch of her lower lip, tugging at the corners of her mouth until her lips stretched taught against her teeth, dimples formed in the center of each cheek, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. Her head lolled against his, his hair tickling her face, and she giggled a little.

"What," Vaughn chuckled, raising his head to look at her, "Is something funny?"

"It's not funny," she ruffled her fingers through his hair, "I'm just happy. Like, _so_ happy."

He hesitated for a second, like he thought she might be kidding, before letting his own smile envelope his features. "I know, right? Me, too."

She laughed a little again before asking, "So, where are we gonna live?"

"Eh, we'll deal with that in the morning," Vaughn sighed deeply and slid away from her, just far enough leave her but resting on his stomach between her thighs. "We've got all the time in the world to sort things out."

"Forever, right?" she said with a smile.

"Yep," he nodded and kissed her stomach.

Something in her froze at his simple, sweet gesture. A chill rose on her arms, her skin goose-pimpling under her light sweat.

_My patients would love that. Knowing that their doctor still can't believe women can actually get pregnant._

A sudden wave of panic swept over her, the urge to flee, to scream out, but she kept breathing as evenly as possible. _It's not the same_, she told herself, _he is not Danny, you are not working for Arvin Sloane, it's not the same. He knows what you are. Hell, he made you what you are._

"Syd?" Vaughn said, "You in there?" She knew from his bemused expression that he'd said something she'd failed to respond to in her inward moment.

"Yeah," she smiled lightly, "I'm just tired, that's all… Long trip."

He nodded, his chin scratchy against her belly. "I'm so tired I don't even want to move," he replied.

"So stay," she whispered, "Stay close to me." She cupped her palm around the curve of his jaw and pulled his cheek against her stomach, his whiskers prickly against the smooth, taut skin.

She lay awake long after his breath became deep and even, replaying her momentary panic, analyzing and compartmentalizing it out of existence. Years before, the panic attacks had been an unwelcome, but familiar occurrence. Over time, though, and with what seemed to her a slightly unhealthy amount of introspection, she had grown adept at shutting off the swells of emotion that threatened to reduce her to a sniveling mess of tears. She thought with disgust of the dinner party she interrupted, when Francie had announced her engagement to Charlie, by disappearing into the bedroom to dissolve in tears. Her face grew slightly hot even now, in the dark of their bedroom, to remember how Will had had to comfort her and convince her to put on a strong face and come back out to the table.

_What had been so bad_, she asked herself, _about it_? Was it the fleeting feeling of normalcy? Of domestic bliss this cocoon of safety and happiness that they'd built here?

She remembered Sark's book, lying hidden under a towel in her carry-on. Their world was right there, in his hidden message to her. Right in the next room. There was no escaping it--the realization that her sense of belonging to the realm of the normal was just as much an illusion with Vaughn as it had been with Danny.

Sighing deeply, she closed her eyes as she reluctantly let go of the last bit of the panic and let herself fall into an exhausted sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning they dragged themselves out of their jet-lagged stupor to the office, where they answered the same curious questions from everyone who hadn't seen them in 10 days. Their honeymoon destination had been a secret, out of necessity, partly for safety and partly for privacy. Not that it had stopped Sark, of all people, from showing up there. Many of their coworkers commented on how noticeable Sydney's freckles had become, and she received the numerous admonishments about the dangers of skin cancer with a thin smile.

Before they'd left the house, Sydney had retrieved Sark's book from her carryon and stashed it safely in the bottom of her work bag, deciding to say it was her lunch reading if anyone asked. For most of the morning, she sorted through the mountain of emails waiting for her, wondering at the number of them that began, "I know you're out of the office and won't see this for awhile, but…"

Shortly before 11, her father stopped by her desk. She stood, embracing him briefly before asking if there'd been any change in Nadia's condition.

"No," Jack replied bluntly, "I'm afraid not. Sloane keeps insisting that he knows where he can find her cure, but you know there's no chance of them letting him out of custody to do that."

She crossed her arms and nodded curtly. "I know."

"Sydney, they're doing everything they can," her father said softly. "How was your trip?"

"Oh, you know," she smiled shyly, "It was a honeymoon."

A knowing smile quirked the corner of Jack's mouth as he awkwardly shoved his hands in his pockets. "I do at that. I take it you weren't… interrupted?"

She glanced to the side for a second, considering whether to tell him what had happened. What good would that do, except make Jack suspicious? On the other hand, she owed Sark nothing. He was a wanted fugitive.

"Let's go in the briefing room for a minute," she suggested.

Jack followed behind her, his hand on the small of her back. She sank into one of the minimalist armchairs that she found minimally comfortable and waited as he seated himself across from her, at the head of the conference table. Jack drew a fountain pen from his suitcoat pocket and twisted the cap counterclockwise.

"It's a Marshall special," he grinned wryly. "We have two minutes."

"Dad," she breathed, "Sark was there—at the resort."

"Sark," Jack repeated, leaning forwards, the back of his tongue hovering near his soft palette from forming the 'k' at the end of the word. "In Mexico?"

"Yes," she hissed urgently. "I kept feeling like someone was following me, and then there he was. He said he was on vacation."

Her father didn't react immediately, choosing instead to fold his fingers neatly in front of him on the glass table. "Did you… interact with him?" His tone was making her uneasy. What did he mean, interact?

"What—no! He was alone, I think, and as far as I could tell, he was just… relaxing," she shrugged. That was the truth… more or less.

"This concerns me," Jack raised one eyebrow. "Anything Sark does is unlikely to be coincidence. He must've wanted to make contact with you for some reason."

Her insides twisted in a way that she didn't feel was very healthy. Not this soon after their return to the office. Usually it was at least 6 hours before she started feeling tense.

"What concerns me more is that he knew where to find you," Jack continued, his brow now furrowing into a deep crease. "I thought your arrangements were more than squeaky clean—you did take all the necessary precautions, didn't you?"

"Dad, of course!" she exclaimed, exasperated at his line of questioning—as if they had done something to make Sark appear out of thin air. "We were more than careful."

"Does Vaughn know?" Jack's lips were set in a thin line.

"Vaughn, no…." she trailed off. How could she explain this without it sounding… suspicious? "Sark only made contact with me," she said._ And I only with him_, she thought.

Jack fairly glowered before saying, "Let's keep it that way, then."

She nodded without meeting his eyes, simultaneously irritated at his predilection for keeping Vaughn out of the loop and relieved that her secret was officially paternally sanctioned. Just then, his pen emitted a tiny electronic beep and Jack looked at her with a tight-lipped smile.

"You can show me all the pictures later," he announced loudly for anyone who might've been eavesdropping. "It sounds like you had a great time."

Knowing that her father was suspicious of Sark's sudden appearance made her insatiably curious about the book. Despite the nearly overwhelming temptation to steal away to the bathroom and finish decoding the message, she forced herself to sit at her desk and continue sorting emails and memos.

After another half hour had passed, Vaughn stopped by her desk; leaning over her from behind, he kissed her temple and whispered, "We have a lot of nosy coworkers."

She smiled and shook her head without raising her eyes from the briefing report she was skimming. "Imagine that—curious CIA employees."

"Yeah, yeah," Vaughn replied. "So, would you want to look at a place on the way home from work? Eric knows someone who's trying to get rid of a condo."

"Ahhh," Sydney breathed, hesitating to commit, "Where is it?"

"I dunno, I didn't ask for the address."

"Why don't you? That way maybe we could set up a couple places in the same area to compare," she suggested.

Vaughn nodded, and straightened up. "You really want to start on the thank you's that bad, huh?"

"We have to do them sometime."

"I know." He squeezed her shoulder quickly, a gruffly affectionate gesture that reminded of her father. "I'll ask later."

"Ok."


End file.
